LESSON 50 
Harpy SHRUBS 
- HIS lesson should introduce the student to the 
aK study of shrubs. It is a study however which 
will require long.and serious application before 
a knowledge of these indispensable materials is 
secured sufficient to guide the landscape gardener 
in his daily work. 
Discussion 
Shrubs are important in every type of landscape gardening but 
especially in the free naturalistic style as practiced in England and 
America. 
American practice, based upon sound esthetic reasons, gives 
strong preference to hardy native species. Besides those species 
strictly native to this continent there are a number so far domesti- 
cated as to be accepted to horticultural citizenship without further 
question. Amongst these the garden lilac stands preeminent, but 
other shrubs which are so fully naturalized as to be used freely in 
any plantings are mock orange (syringa), some of the spireas, the 
Japanese barberry and the privets. 
Shrubs are particularly useful in making foundation plantings, 
in forming screens or borders along boundaries, and in foreground 
planting in front of trees. 
Shrubs should nearly always be massed, several plants of a 
species being put together with few species in any one group. To 
harmonize several species in one group requires considerable skill 
and should be undertaken only by landscape planters of experience. 
Shrubs are seldom very attractive when used as single specimens, 
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